Tag: Ultimate Travel

Nicaragua, Overview, Summary and Links, 6 to 23 February 2016

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I think we’re now done with the blog materials from our wonderful trip to Nicaragua.

The best of the photographs are up now as a Flickr album – click here and link through.

The itinerary produced by Ultimate Travel (whom we highly recommend for this sort of thing) can be downloaded on the following link: Harris and Wormleighton final itinerary – Feb 2016.

If you want to read my blog sequentially from the beginning of the trip – then start by clicking here and work forwards.  Well worth the effort in my view.

But those seeking highlights and low-lights, you might find what you are looking for this way:

Don't try saying "La Cuneta" in polite company after two or more rum and cokes
Mondongo by La Cuneta

 

A Short Break in Oman, Zighy Bay, 1 to 12 March 2014

We needed 10 days of complete rest and relaxation, so opted for Zighy Bay at the North-West tip of Oman. So “tippy”, it is actually much closer to Dubai than to Muscat, hence flying in to the Emirates and driving across to Zighy Bay.

Mike Smith had persuaded me to try playing the baritone ukulele a few weeks before and lent me such an instrument. I said I would get no chance to start before my holiday and was reluctant to take his instrument with me, but Mike assured me that he would not be fazed if anything happened to it. So I basically took up the instrument out there. Baby steps.

I didn’t keep any kind of written log, so spaced out were we with the pampering luxury of it all, but there are about 50 photos to be seen here or below…

01 Ged Swimming In Our Villa Pool P1010023

…and Janie (Daisy) was on a bit of a moving picture fix at that time, so some pretty weird vids:

In case you remain unaware, I am Ged and Janie is Daisy – these have been our pet names for each other since 1993.

The Origins Of Ged & Daisy, Bali, c10 December 1993

Itinerary and info on Zighy Bay downloadable below.

Wormleighton – 01 Mar 14 – Itinerary

Six Senses Zighy Bay – Fact Sheet

I’m not too sure what else I can say about this blissfully restful break.

We loved the place.

We played tennis pretty much every day. We swam in that little pool of ours. We took strolls.

We read quite a lot. I especially remember reading Joe Boyd’s book White Bicycles, but I read several others too. Perhaps you can spot the book pile in one of the videos.

I played around with that musical instrument, very early steps down that road.

We ate wonderful food. We locked away our mobile phones and pretty much didn’t look at them for 10 days.

We rested well.

Vietnam, 9 to 27 February 2012, placeholder and links

We took a wonderful trip back to Vietnam in early 2012. Our first visit in 1996 had been somewhat limited by time and some difficulty back then travelling comfortably off the beaten track. So we did “the Grand Tour” back then but had always wanted to go back and see some other places.

This 2012 trip took in Saigon, Can Tho, the Mekong Delta (including a home stay in Ut Trinh), Dalat and then rest and relaxation in Ninh Van Bay.

Bad place to drop something - a major junction in Saigon
Bad place to drop something – a major junction in Saigon

We took some good photos, just under 200 of them worth seeing assembled here for all to see on Flickr.

001 Feb 10 Dinner at Park Hyatt Saigon P1020058

Here is a link to all 379 photos; those worth seeing and the rest:

P1020070

Here’s the Ultimate Travel itinerary: Vietnam Tour February 2012 Ultimate.

Here are some Six Senses Ninh Van Bay Menus.

Here is a map of the Ninh Van Bay Resort, where we enjoyed some good rest and relaxation at the end of our trip:

Ninh Van Bay Map

 

I have written up the travel log, which,  if you want to read it going forwards from the start, begins here:

Vietnam Holiday Days Zero & One: London To Saigon Via Bangkok, 9 & 10 February 2012

Berlin, 26 to 30 October 2007, placeholder and links

Berlin had been on our list for some time and we hadn’t taken one of these short city breaks for a while, so a late October slot ahead of the pre-Christmas madness seemed like an excellent idea. It was.

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This was another job for “Auntie Janet” of Ultimate Travel fame. All done by e-mail – how wonderfully modern.

Further to our telephone conversations today, I confirm that Kirker Holidays could arrange a four night holiday to Berlin for you staying at the Brandenburger Hof Hotel in a de luxe room for four nights on a bed and buffet breakfast basis.  They can also book the following British Airways flights for you:

26 October      BA 982          Depart Heathrow: 08.55          Arrive Berlin: 11.40
30 October      BA 985          Depart Berlin: 16.25            Arrive Heathrow: 17.20

You will also be met at the airport and taken to the hotel and transferred from the hotel to the airport on 30th October.

Sounded good to me.  Further correspondence booked a restaurant table and a chance to see a concert.  Me to Janet:

Please confirm booking for hotel’s amazing restaurant 26 October as originally requested and please also book the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra concert for evening 27 October.

…but we’d left it too late for the Rattle/Berlin Phil. Me again:

Shame about the Rattle concert.  Can you please instead book us for the Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin concert at 16:00 on the Sunday, 28th October.  Hopefully there’ll be good tickets remaining for that concert.

There were; it was wonderful to see them play at home. I’ll write up the concert when I get around to fleshing out my notes etc. from this short trip.

Interestingly, these phone calls and e-mail exchanges with Auntie Janet started about five weeks before dad’s demise (so indeed before we knew that anything was badly wrong with him) and concluded just a couple of weeks after he died. I don’t recall how I felt about this at the time, but Janie and I must have decided that we’d need the break by then and I’m sure that decision was the right one.

Here is the hand-written journal, with only some fairly duff scanning possible from that particular notebook, so good luck to you if you try to read this: Berlin October 2007 Journal Notes. There’ll be a few good yarns once I write these up.

Here is a link to photos on Flickr; some interesting, some wacky, some neither, some both.

 

Journey To Ethiopia & Zanzibar, Placeholder & Links, 16 February To 9 March 2006

We went to Ethiopia and Zanzibar in early 2006, using Ultimate Travel as our agents. Here is a link to our itinerary in glorious technicolour and detail.

I kept a detailed journal and shall Ogblog the whole adventure in some detail in the fullness of time. But for now, the itinerary above and photo album links below will have to suffice.

The photos are well labelled in those albums, so should serve as a pretty useful travel log in their own right.

Below are the links to all of the labelled photos, divided into half-a-dozen conveniently sized albums.

First up, Addis To Jinka:

01 Addis Ababa's Merkato Market is famous for its spices P2170002

The second set, below: The South Omo Valley. Possibly the most eye-catching photos, especially if you like tribal photography.

04 ...the breasts are most likely unaltered P2190042

Third up: Axum To Lalibela – below:

01 Kiddist Selasie (Holy Trinity) Cathedral 35M1_Photo33_2

Fourth: Lalibela to Gonder

001 After breakfast we mount our mules for the morning outing, aided by our mule teers and a worried-looking Dawit 140M4_Photo32_XA

Fifth up: Bahir Dar to Addis

01 We fly to Bahir Dar and our boat comes to our hotel to meet us P2270006

Last but not least – Zanzibar – below:

01 We start our Stonetown tour in the market P3040134

If you are crazy enough to want to wade through my hand-written journals before I transcribe/translate/write up from them, here they are in three batches:

Plenty more to follow.